Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler, and the Power of a Dynasty

Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler, and the Power of a Dynasty by Clark. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781118018521.

The book that inspired HBOs documentary "Agnelli." The Economist calls it "a crackling business yarn." Mondo Agnelli is the definitive account of how the Agnelli family founded carmaker Fiat in 1899 and single-mindedly built it into Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, now Stellantis, the worlds fourth-largest automobile company. The first half of the book traces Fiats rise from an idea Agnelli had in a Turin café to an industrial colossus that was once worth 5 percent of Italys gross domestic product. It documents the Agnelli familys unique blend of glamor, taste, influence and tragedy that make them "Italys royal family" and the Mediterranean equivalent of the Kennedy clan. The second part looks at how Sergio Marchionne brought Fiat back from the brink starting in 2004 after the family nearly lost the ailing carmaker. The final segment recounts how Fiat took control of a bankrupt Chrysler for free in 2009, when Marchionne and his team revived an American icon that had been left for dead through, and paved the way for the January 2021 merger with French competitor PSA. Jennifer Clark "keeps the story moving along nicely, from Giovanni to Gianni to Marchionne. She is especially good at conjuring a sense of place, whether in the Fiat factories or the many Agnelli villas and funerals that dot the text," from New York Times Review, December 31, 2011.